Tell Brak (Nagar, Nawar) was an ancient city in Syria; its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The city's original name is unknown, during the second half of the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar and later on, Nawar.

Starting as a small settlement in the seventh millennium BC, Tell Brak evolved during the fourth millennium BC into one of the biggest cities in Upper Mesopotamia, and interacted with the cultures of southern Mesopotamia, the city shrank in size at the beginning of the third millennium BC with the end of Uruk period, before expanding again around c. 2600 BC, when it became known as Nagar, and was the capital of a regional kingdom that controlled the Khabur river valley. Nagar was destroyed around c. 2300 BC, and came under the rule of the Akkadian Empire, followed by a period of independence as a Hurrian city-state, before contracting at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Nagar prospered again by the 19th century BC, and came under the rule of different regional powers; in c. 1500 BC, Tell Brak was a center of Mitanni before being destroyed by Assyria c. 1300 BC. The city never regained its former importance, remaining as a small settlement, and abandoned at some points of its history, until disappearing from records during the early Abbasid era.

Different peoples inhabited the city, including the Halafians, Semites and the Hurrians. Tell Brak was a religious center from its earliest periods; its famous Eye Temple is unique in the Fertile Crescent, and its main deity, Belet-Nagar, was revered in the entire Khabur region, making the city a pilgrimage site. The culture of Tell Brak was defined by the different civilizations that inhabited it, and it was famous for its glyptic style, equids and glass. When independent, the city was ruled by a local assembly or by a monarch. Tell Brak was a trade center due to its location between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia, it was excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937, then regularly by different teams between 1979 and 2011, when the work stopped due to the Syrian Civil War.

Name

The original name of the city is unknown;[2] Tell Brak is the current name of the tell.[3] East of the mound lies a dried lake named "Khatuniah" which was recorded as "Lacus Beberaci" (the lake of Brak) in the Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana,[4] the lake was probably named after Tell Brak which was the nearest camp in the area.[5] The name "Brak" might therefore be an echo of the most ancient name.[4]

During the third millennium BC, the city was known as "Nagar", which might be of Semitic origin and mean a "cultivated place",[6] the name "Nagar" ceased occurring following the Old Babylonian period,[7][8] however, the city continued to exist as Nawar, under the control of Hurrian state of Mitanni.[9][10] Hurrian kings of Urkesh took the title "King of Urkesh and Nawar" in the third millennium BC; although there is general view that the third millennium BC Nawar is identical with Nagar,[11] some scholars, such as Jesper Eidem, doubt this.[12] Those scholars opt for a city closer to Urkesh which was also called Nawala/Nabula as the intended Nawar.[12]

History

Tell Brak's periods.

Early settlement

The earliest period A, is dated to the proto Halaf culture c. 6500 BC, when a small settlement existed.[13] Many objects dated to that period were discovered including the Halaf pottery.[14] By 5000 BC,[15] Halaf culture transformed into Northern Ubaid,[16] and many Ubaid materials were found in Tell Brak.[17] Excavations and surface survey of the site and its surroundings, unearthed a large platform of patzen bricks that dates to late Ubaid,[note 1][17] and revealed that Tell Brak developed as an urban center slightly earlier than better known cities of southern Mesopotamia, such as Uruk.[19][20]

The first city

Eye figurines from the Eye Temple.

In southern Mesopotamia, the original Ubaid culture evolved into the Uruk period.[21] The people of the southern Uruk period used military and commercial means to expand the civilization.[22] In Northern Mesopotamia, the post Ubaid period is designated Late Chalcolithic / Northern Uruk period,[23] during which, Tell Brak started to expand.[17]

Period Brak E witnessed the building of the city's walls,[24] and Tell Brak expansion beyond the mound to form a lower town.[17] By the late 5th millennium BC, Tell Brak reached the size of c. 55 hectares.[25] Area TW of the tell (Archaeologists divided Tell Brak into areas designated with Alphabetic letters.[26] See the map for Tell Brak's areas) revealed the remains of a monumental building with two meters thick walls and a basalt threshold;[27] in front of the building, a sherd paved street was discovered, leading to the northern entrance of the city.[27]

The city continued to expand during period F, and reached the size of 130 hectares.[28] Four mass graves dating to c. 3800–3600 BC were discovered in the surroundings of the tell, and they suggest that the process of urbanization was accompanied by internal social stress, and an increase in the organization of warfare.[29] The first half of period F (designated LC3), saw the erection of the Eye Temple,[note 2][28] which was named for the thousands of small alabaster "Eye idols" figurines discovered in it.[note 3][35] Those idols were also found in area TW.[36]

Interactions with the Mesopotamian south grew during the second half of period F (designated LC4) c. 3600 BC,[37] and an Urukean colony was established in the city.[38][39] With the end of Uruk culture c 3000 BC, Tell Brak's Urukean colony was abandoned and deliberately leveled by its occupants.[40][41] Tell Brak contracted during the following periods H and J, and became limited to the mound.[42] Evidence exists for an interaction with the Mesopotamian south during period H, represented by the existence of materials similar to the ones produced during the southern Jemdet Nasr period.[43] The city remained a small settlement during the Ninevite 5 period, with a small temple and associated sealing activities.[note 4][42]

Kingdom of Nagar

Around c. 2600 BC, a large administrative building was built and the city expanded out of the tell again.[42] The revival is connected with the Kish civilization,[48] and the city was named "Nagar".[49] Amongst the important buildings dated to the kingdom, is an administrative building or temple named the "Brak Oval",[50] located in area TC,[51] the building have a curved exterior wall reminiscent of the Khafajah "Oval Temple" in central Mesopotamia.[52] However, aside from the wall, the comparison between the two buildings in terms of architecture is difficult, as each building follows a different plan.[53]

The oldest references to Nagar comes from Mari and tablets discovered at Nabada.[54] However, the most important source on Nagar come from the archives of Ebla.[55] Most of the texts record the ruler of Nagar using his title "En", without mentioning a name,[54][55] however a text from Ebla mentions Mara-Il, a king of Nagar;[54] thus, he is the only ruler known by name for pre-Akkadian Nagar and ruled a little more than a generation before the kingdom's destruction.[56]

At its height, Nagar encompassed most of the southwestern half of the Khabur Basin,[56] and was a diplomatic and political equal of the Eblaite and Mariote states.[57] The kingdom included at least 17 subordinate cities,[58] such as Hazna,[59] and most importantly Nabada, which was a city-state annexed by Nagar,[60] and served as a provincial capital.[61] Nagar was involved in the wide diplomatic network of Ebla,[48] and the relations between the two kingdoms involved both confrontations and alliances.[55] A text from Ebla mention a victory of Ebla's king (perhaps Irkab-Damu) over Nagar.[55] However, a few years later, a treaty was concluded, and the relations progressed toward a dynastic marriage between princess Tagrish-Damu of Ebla, and prince Ultum-Huhu, Nagar's monarch's son.[6][55]

Nagar was defeated by Mari in year seven of the Eblaite vizier Ibrium's term, causing the blockage of trade routes between Ebla and southern Mesopotamia via upper Mesopotamia.[62] Later, Ebla's king Isar-Damu concluded an alliance with Nagar and Kish against Mari,[63] and the campaign was headed by the Eblaite vizier Ibbi-Sipish, who led the combined armies to victory in a battle near Terqa.[64] Afterwards, the alliance attacked the rebellious Eblaite vassal city of Armi.[65] Ebla was destroyed approximately three years after Terqa's battle,[66] and soon after, Nagar followed in c. 2300 BC.[67] Large parts of the city were burned, an act attributed either to Mari,[68] or Sargon of Akkad.[67]

Akkadian period

Following its destruction, Nagar was rebuilt by the Akkadian empire, to form a center of the provincial administration.[69] The city included the whole tell and a lower town at the southern edge of the mound.[49] Two public buildings were built during the early Akkadian periods, one complex in area SS,[69] and another in area FS.[70] The building of area FS included its own temple and might have served as a caravanserai, being located near the northern gate of the city.[71] The early Akkadian monarchs were occupied with internal conflicts,[72] and Tell Brak was temporarily abandoned by Akkad at some point preceding the reign of Naram-Sin.[note 5][75] The abandonment might be connected with an environmental event, that caused the desertification of the region.[75]

The destruction of Nagar's kingdom created a power vacuum in the Upper Khabur.[76] The Hurrians, formerly concentrated in Urkesh,[77] took advantage of the situation to control the region as early as Sargon's latter years.[76] Tell Brak was known as "Nawar" for the Hurrians,[78] and kings of Urkesh took the title "King of Urkesh and Nawar", first attested in the seal of Urkesh's king Atal-Shen.[11][79]

The use of the title continued during the reigns of Atal-Shen's successors, Tupkish and Tish-Atal,[77][80] who ruled only in Urkesh.[78] The Akkadians under Naram-Sin incorporated Nagar firmly into their empire.[81] The most important Akkadian building in the city is called the "Palace of Naram-Sin",[note 6][81] which had parts of it built over the original Eye Temple.[82][83] Despite its name, the palace is closer to a fortress,[81] as it was more of a fortified depot for the storage of collected tribute rather than a residential seat.[84][85] The palace was burned during Naram-Sin's reign, perhaps by a Lullubi attack,[67] and the city was burned toward the end of the Akkadian period c. 2193 BC, probably by the Gutians.[67]

Post-Akkadian kingdom

The Akkadian period was followed by period N,[86] during which Nagar was the center of an independent Hurrian dynasty,[87] evidenced by the discovery of a seal, recording the name of king Talpus-Atili of Nagar,[88] who ruled during or slightly after the reign of Naram-Sin's son Shar-Kali-Sharri.[89] The view that Tell Brak came under the control of Ur III is refused,[note 7][91] and evidence exists for a Hurrian rebuilding of Naram-Sin's palace, erroneously attributed by Max Mallowan to Ur-Nammu of Ur.[92] Period N saw a reduction in the city's size, with public buildings being abandoned, and the lower town evacuated.[93] Few short lived houses were built in area CH during period N,[93] and although greatly reduced in size, archaeology provided evidence for continued occupation in the city, instead of abandonment.[note 8][97]

Foreign rule and later periods

The Mitannian palace.

During period P, Nagar was densely populated in the northern ridge of the tell,[98] the city came under the rule of Mari,[99] and was the site of a decisive victory won by Yahdun-Lim of Mari over Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria.[100] Nagar lost its importance and came under the rule of Kahat in the 18th century BC.[8]

During period Q, Tell Brak was an important trade city in the Mitanni state.[101] A two-story palace was built c. 1500 BC in the northern section of the tell,[98][102] in addition to an associated temple.[103] However, the rest of the tell was not occupied, and a lower town extended to the north but is now all but destroyed through modern agriculture.[104] Two Mitannian legal documents, bearing the names of kings Artashumara and Tushratta, were recovered from the city,[105] which was destroyed between c.1300 and 1275 BC,[104] in two waves, first at the hands of the Assyrian king Adad-Nirari I, then by his successor Shalmaneser I.[106]

Little evidence of an occupation on the tell exists following the destruction of the Mitannian city, however, a series of small villages existed in the lower town during the Assyrian periods,[107] the remains of a Hellenistic settlement were discovered on a nearby satellite tell, to the northwestern edge of the main tell.[107] However, excavations recovered no ceramics of the Parthian-Roman or Byzantine-Sasanian periods, although sherds dating to those periods are noted.[107] In the middle of the first millennium AD, a fortified building was erected in the northeastern lower town,[107] the building was dated by Antoine Poidebard to the Justinian era (sixth century AD), on the basis of its architecture.[107] The last occupation period of the site was during the early Abbasid Caliphate's period,[108] when a canal was built to provide the town with water from the nearby Jaghjagh River.[107]

Society

People and language

The Halafians were the indigenous people of Neolithic northern Syria,[note 9][110] who later adopted the southern Ubaidian culture.[16] Contact with the Mesopotamian south increased during the early and middle Northern Uruk period,[30] and southern people moved to Tell Brak in the late Uruk period,[111] forming a colony, which produced a mixed society.[43] The Urukean colony was abandoned by the colonist toward the end of the fourth millennium BC, leaving the indigenous Tell Brak a much contracted city.[112][113] The pre-Akkadian kingdom's population was Semitic,[114] and spoke its own East Semitic dialect of the Eblaite language used in Ebla and Mari.[115] The Nagarite dialect is closer to the dialect of Mari rather than that of Ebla.[61]

No Hurrian names are recorded in the pre-Akkadian period,[72][116] although the name of prince Ultum-Huhu is difficult to understand as Semitic.[117] During the Akkadian period, both Semitic and Hurrian names were recorded,[70][114] as the Hurrians appears to have taken advantage of the power vacuum caused by the destruction of the pre-Akkadian kingdom, in order to migrate and expand in the region.[76] The post-Akkadian period Tell Brak had a strong Hurrian element,[118] and Hurrian named rulers,[114] although the region was also inhabited by Amorite tribes.[119] A number of the Amorite Banu-Yamina tribes settled the surroundings of Tell Brak during the reign of Zimri-Lim of Mari,[119] and each group used its own language (Hurrian and Amorite languages).[119] Tell Brak was a center of the Hurrian-Mitannian empire,[105] which had Hurrian as its official language.[120] However, Akkadian was the region's international language, evidenced by the post-Akkadian and Mitannian eras tablets,[121][122] discovered at Tell Brak and written in Akkadian.[123]

Religion

The findings in the Eye Temple indicate that Tell Brak is among the earliest sites of organized religion in northern Mesopotamia.[124] It is unknown to which deity the Eye Temple was dedicated,[2] and the "Eyes" figurines appears to be votive offerings to that unknown deity.[30]Michel Meslin hypothesized that the temple was the center of the Sumerian Innana or the Semitic Ishtar, and that the "Eyes" figurines were a representation of an all-seeing female deity.[125]

During the pre-Akkadain kingdom's era, Hazna, an old cultic center of northern Syria, served as a pilgrimage center for Nagar.[126] The Eye Temple remained in use,[127] but as a small shrine,[128] while the goddess Belet-Nagar became the kingdom's paramount deity.[note 10][127] The temple of Belet-Nagar is not identified but probably lies beneath the Mitannian palace,[98] the Eblaite deity Kura was also venerated in Nagar,[117] and the monarchs are attested visiting the temple of the Semitic deity Dagon in Tuttul.[55] During the Akkadian period, the temple in area FS was dedicated to the Sumerian god Shakkan, the patron of animals and countrysides.[71][131][132] Tell Brak was an important religious Hurrian center,[133] and the temple of Belet-Nagar retained its cultic importance in the entire region until the early second millennium BC.[note 11][6]

Culture

Area TW

Northern Mesopotamia evolved independently from the south during the Late Chalcolithic / early and middle Northern Uruk (4000–3500 BC).[38] This period was characterized by a strong emphasis on holy sites,[135] among which, the Eye Temple was the most important in Tell Brak.[136] The building containing "Eyes" idols in area TW was wood paneled, whose main room had been lined with wooden panels,[28] the building also contained the earliest known semi columned facade, which is a character that will be associated with temples in later periods.[28]

By late Northern Uruk and especially after 3200 BC, northern Mesopotamia came under the full cultural dominance of the southern Uruk culture,[38] which affected Tell Brak's architecture and administration.[111] The southern influence is most obvious in the level named the "Latest Jemdet Nasr" of the Eye Temple,[32] which had southern elements such as cone mosaics.[137] The Uruk presence was peaceful as it is first noted in the context of feasting; commercial deals during that period were traditionally ratified through feasting.[note 12][111][138] The excavations in area TW revealed feasting to be an important local habit, as two cooking facilities, large amounts of grains, skeletons of animals, a domed backing oven and barbequing fire pets were discovered.[139] Among the late Uruk materials found at Tell Brak, is a standard text for educated scribes (the "Standard Professions" text), part of the standardized education taught in the 3rd millennium BC over a wide area of Syria and Mesopotamia.[140]

A drawing of a seal from Nabada, pre-Akkadian kingdom of Nagar, in "Brak Style"

The pre-Akkadian kingdom was famed for its acrobats, who were in demand in Ebla and trained local Eblaite entertainers,[56] the kingdom also had its own local glyptic style called the "Brak Style",[141] which was distinct from the southern sealing variants, employing soft circled shapes and sharpened edges.[142] The Akkadian administration had little effect on the local administrative traditions and sealing style,[143] and Akkadian seals existed side by side with the local variant.[144] The Hurrians employed the Akkadian style in their seals, and Elamite seals were discovered, indicating an interaction with the western Iranian Plateau.[144] Tell Brak provided great knowledge on the culture of Mitanni, which produced glass using sophisticated techniques, that resulted in different varieties of multicolored and decorated shapes.[105] Samples of the elaborate Nuzi ware were discovered, in addition to seals that combine distinctive Mitannian elements with the international motifs of that period.[105]

Wagons

Seals from Tell Brak and Nabada dated to the pre-Akkadian kingdom, revealed the use of four-wheeled wagons and war carriages.[145] Excavation in area FS recovered clay models of equids and wagons dated to the Akkadian and post-Akkadian periods.[145] The models provide information about the types of wagons used during that period (2350–2000 BC),[146] and they include four wheeled vehicles and two types of two wheeled vehicles; the first is a cart with fixed seats and the second is a cart where the driver stands above the axle.[101] The chariots were introduced during the Mitanni era,[101] and none of the pre-Mitanni carriages can be considered chariots, as they are mistakenly described in some sources.[101][146]

Government

The first city had the characteristics of large urban centers, such as monumental buildings,[147] and seems to have been ruled by a kinship based assembly, headed by elders.[148] The pre-Akkadian kingdom was decentralized,[149] and the provincial center of Nabada was ruled by a council of elders, next to the king's representative.[150] The Nagarite monarchs had to tour their kingdom regularly in order to assert their political control.[149][151] During the early Akkadian period, Nagar was administrated by local officials.[70] However, central control was tightened and the number of Akkadian officials increased, following the supposed environmental event that preceded the construction of Naram-Sin's palace.[103] The post-Akkadian Nagar was a city-state kingdom,[152] that gradually lost its political importance during the early second millennium BC, as no evidence for a king dating to that period exists.[100]

Economy

Throughout its history, Tell Brak was an important trade center; it was an enterpot of obsidian trade during the Chalcolithic, as it was situated on the river crossing between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia.[156] The countryside was occupied by smaller towns, villages and hamlets, but the city's surroundings were empty within three kilometers,[37] this was probably due to the intensive cultivation in the immediate hinterland, in order to sustain the population.[37] The city manufactured different objects, including chalices made of obsidian and white marble,[29]faience,[157] flint tools and shell inlays.[158] However, evidence exists for a slight shift in production of goods toward manufacturing objects desired in the south, following the establishment of the Uruk colony.[111]

Trade was also an important economic activity for the pre-Akkadian kingdom of Nagar,[73] which had Ebla and Kish as major partners.[73] The kingdom produced glass,[157] wool,[56] and was famous for breeding and trading in the Kunga,[159][160] a hybrid of a donkey and a female onager.[160] Tell Brak remained an important commercial center during the Akkadian period,[161] and was one of Mitanni's main trade cities.[101] Many objects were manufactured in Mitannian Tell Brak, including furniture made of ivory, wood and bronze, in addition to glass.[105] The city provided evidence for the international commercial contacts of Mitanni, including Egyptian, Hittite and Mycenaean objects, some of which were produced in the region to satisfy the local taste.[105]

Equids

The Kungas of pre-Akkadian Nagar were used for drawing the carriages of kings before the domestication of the horse,[162] and a royal procession included up to fifty animals.[163] The kungas of Nagar were in great demand in the Eblaite empire;[159] they cost two kilos of silver, fifty times the price of a donkey,[162] and were imported regularly by the monarchs of Ebla to be used as transport animals and gifts for allied cities.[159] The horse was known in the region during the third millennium BC, but was not used as a draught animal before c. 18th century BC.[160]

Syrian Civil War

According to the Syrian authorities, the camp of archaeologists was looted, along with the tools and ceramics kept in it,[171] the site changed hands between the different combatants, mainly the Kurdish People's Protection Units and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[172] In early 2015, Tell Brak was taken by the Kurdish forces after light fighting with the Islamic State.[173]

See also

Notes

^Patzens are large rectangular bricks that comes in different sizes.[18]

^The temple have multiple levels, the earliest two are named the red and grey levels respectively,[30] and they date to LC3.[31] The third level (the white level) is dated to period LC5 (c. 3200–3000 BC),[30][32] while the fourth and current visible one is named the "Latest Jemdet Nasr", and also dates to the late fourth millennium BC (LC5).[33] Excavations revealed two rebuilding following the "Latest Jemdet Nasr" building, and they date to the Early Dynastic period I.[33][34]

^The temple is located in area TC, adjacent to the so called "Brak Oval" building.[44] It is dated to the Ninevite 5 period,[45] period J c. 2700 BC.[46] The temple consist of a single room with a mud brick altar,[45] and contained a cache of over 500 sealings.[47]

^The nature of the Akkadian early period is ambiguous, local texts do not reflect the reign of Sargon or his successors.[73] Two bowels bearing Rimush's inscription were discovered in the palace of his nephew Naram-Sin, however, they could have been diplomatic gifts to a local ruler.[74]

^Some of the building's bricks had Naram-Sin's name stamped on it.[81]

^Max Mallowan discovered a seal in 1947 and attributed it to Ur-Nammu of Ur; this led to the assumption that Ur controlled Tell-Brak.[90] However, the translation of the seal showed no sign of Ur-Nammu's name

^Harvey Weiss suggest the total abandonment of Nagar within fifty years following the Akkadians departure,[94] and attribute the event to a climatic disaster.[95] However, this view is controversial.[96]

^Previously, the Halafians were seen either as hill people who descended from the nearby mountains of southeastern Anatolia, or herdsmen from northern Iraq.[109] However, those views changed with the archaeology conducted by Peter Akkermans, which proved a continues indigenous origin of Halaf culture.[109]

^Belet is the feminine form of Bel, the east-Semitic title of a lord deity.[129] Belet-Nagar is translated as the lady of Nagar.[130]

^Belet-Nagar's worship was spread in wide areas, during year 8 of Amar-Sin's reign, a temple of Belet-Nagar was erected in Ur.[134]

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Peyronel, Luca; Vacca, Agnese (2013). "Natural Resources, Technology and Manufacture Processes at Ebla. A Preliminary Assessment"; in Matthiae, Paolo; Marchetti, Nicolò. Ebla and its Landscape: Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East. Left Coast Press. ISBN978-1-61132-228-6.

Podany, Amanda H. (2010). Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-979875-9.

Porter, Anne (2012). Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-76443-8.

van Soldt, Wilfred H (2010). "The Adaptation of the Cuneiform Script to Foreign Languages". In de Voogt, Alexander J.; Finkel, Irving L. The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity. Brill. ISBN978-90-04-17446-7.

Weiss, Harvey (1983). "Excavations at Tell Leilan and the Origins of North Mesopotamian cities in the Third Millennium B.C.". Paléorient. Association Paléorient. 9 (2). ISSN0153-9345.

1.
Al-Hasakah Governorate
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Al-Hasakah Governorate is a governorate in the far north-east corner of Syria. It is distinguished by its fertile lands, plentiful water, picturesque nature and it was formerly known as Al-Jazira province. Prior to the Syrian Civil War nearly half of Syrias oil was extracted from the region, three soldiers were killed by armed militants in Al-Hasakah in an ambush during the Syrian Civil War on 24 March 2012. About a year later, Kurdish forces launched the 2013 Al-Hasakah offensive, after the battle of al-Hasakah in August 2016 between Kurds and the Bashar al-Assad regime, the area was mostly in Kurdish control. The population of the governorate, according to the official census, was 1,275,118, and was estimated to be 1,377,000 in 2007. Among the Sunni Muslims, mostly Kurds and Arabs, there were about 1,500 Circassians in 1938, in 1949, there were officially 155,643 inhabitants. The French geographers Fevret and Gibert estimated that there were about 50,000 Arabs,60,000 Kurds, a few thousands Jews and Yezidis and this list includes all cities, towns and villages with more than 5,000 inhabitants. The population figures are according to the 2004 official census. Tell Brak, Situated halfway between al-Hasakah city and the town of Qamishli. Excavations in the tell have revealed the Uyun Temple and King Naram-Sins palace-stronghold, Tell el Fakhariya Tell Hittin,15 layers of occupation have been identified

2.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam

3.
Mesopotamia
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In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq

4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

5.
Neolithic
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It ended when metal tools became widespread. The Neolithic is a progression of behavioral and cultural characteristics and changes, including the use of wild and domestic crops, the beginning of the Neolithic culture is considered to be in the Levant about 10, 200–8800 BC. It developed directly from the Epipaleolithic Natufian culture in the region, whose people pioneered the use of wild cereals, which then evolved into true farming. The Natufian period was between 12,000 and 10,200 BC, and the so-called proto-Neolithic is now included in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic between 10,200 and 8800 BC. By 10, 200–8800 BC, farming communities arose in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. Early Neolithic farming was limited to a range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs, sheep. By about 6900–6400 BC, it included domesticated cattle and pigs, the establishment of permanently or seasonally inhabited settlements, not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order, the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture, unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species reached the Neolithic. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νέος néos, new and λίθος líthos, stone, the term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. In the Middle East, cultures identified as Neolithic began appearing in the 10th millennium BC, early development occurred in the Levant and from there spread eastwards and westwards. Neolithic cultures are attested in southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia by around 8000 BC. The total excavated area is more than 1,200 square yards, the Neolithic 1 period began roughly 10,000 years ago in the Levant. A temple area in southeastern Turkey at Göbekli Tepe dated around 9500 BC may be regarded as the beginning of the period. This site was developed by nomadic tribes, evidenced by the lack of permanent housing in the vicinity. At least seven stone circles, covering 25 acres, contain limestone pillars carved with animals, insects, Stone tools were used by perhaps as many as hundreds of people to create the pillars, which might have supported roofs. Other early PPNA sites dating to around 9500–9000 BC have been found in Jericho, Israel, Gilgal in the Jordan Valley, the start of Neolithic 1 overlaps the Tahunian and Heavy Neolithic periods to some degree. The major advance of Neolithic 1 was true farming, in the proto-Neolithic Natufian cultures, wild cereals were harvested, and perhaps early seed selection and re-seeding occurred. The grain was ground into flour, emmer wheat was domesticated, and animals were herded and domesticated

6.
Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it

7.
Halaf culture
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The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BCE and 5100 BCE. Small amounts of Halaf material were excavated in 1913 by Leonard Woolley at Carchemish. However, the most important site for the Halaf tradition was the site of Tell Arpachiyah, now located in the suburbs of Mosul, the Halaf period was succeeded by the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period which comprised the late Halaf, and then by the Ubaid period. However, those views changed with the recent archaeology conducted since 1986 by Peter Akkermans, a formerly unknown transitional culture between the pre-Halaf Neolithics era and Halafs era was uncovered in the Balikh valley, at Tell Sabi Abyad. Currently, eleven occupational layers have been unearthed in Sabi Abyad, levels from 11 to 7 are considered pre-Halaf, from 6 to 4, transitional, and from 3 to 1, early Halaf. No hiatus in occupation is observed except between levels 11 and 10, although no Halaf settlement has been extensively excavated some buildings have been excavated, the tholoi of Tell Arpachiyah, circular domed structures approached through long rectangular anterooms. Only a few of these structures were ever excavated and they were constructed of mud-brick sometimes on stone foundations and may have been for ritual use. Other circular buildings were probably just houses, the best known, most characteristic pottery of Tell Halaf, called Halaf ware, produced by specialist potters, can be painted, sometimes using more than two colors with geometric and animal motifs. Other types of Halaf pottery are known, including unpainted, cooking ware and ware with burnished surfaces, there are many theories about why the distinctive pottery style developed. The theory is that the pottery came about due to regional copying, Halaf pottery has been found in other parts of northern Mesopotamia, such as at Nineveh and Tepe Gawra, Chagar Bazar and at many sites in Anatolia suggesting that it was widely used in the region. In addition, the Halaf communities made female figurines of partially baked clay and stone, the seals are thought to mark the development of concepts of personal property, as similar seals were used for this purpose in later times. The Halaf people used tools made of stone and clay, copper was also known, but was not used for tools. Dryland farming was practiced by the population and this type of farming was based on exploiting natural rainfall without the help of irrigation, in a similar practice to that still practiced today by the Hopi people of Arizona. Emmer wheat, two-rowed barley and flax were grown and they kept cattle, sheep and goats. Halaf culture ended by 5000 BC after entering the so-called Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period, many Halafians settlements were abandoned, and the remaining ones showed Ubaidian characters. The new period is named Northern Ubaid to distinguish it from the proper Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia, the first maintain an invasion and a replacement of the Halafians by the Ubaidians, however, there is no hiatus between the Halaf and northern Ubaid which exclude the invasion theory. The most plausible theory is a Halafian adoption of the Ubaid culture, Akkermans, Peter M. M. G. Schwartz, Glenn M. The Archaeology of Syria, From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies, the Ancient Near East, History, Society and Economy

8.
Uruk period
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The Uruk period existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period and succeeded by the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization, the late Uruk period saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age, it may also be called the Protoliterate period. It was during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, the term Uruk period was coined at a conference in Baghdad in 1930, where at the same time the Jemdet Nasr and Ubaid periods were defined. Periodization is after archaeological layers at Uruk, thus, Uruk XVIII–XIV are not part of the Uruk period proper but are comprised by the Ubaid period. The Uruk period proper corresponds to the layers Uruk XIV–IV, with the late phase Uruk IV lasting ca, Uruk III reaches up to 3000 BC and into the Early Dynastic period. Around 3600 BC, during the Middle Uruk period, Uruk trade networks started to expand to other parts of Mesopotamia, according to archaeologist Konstantine Pitskhelauri, this expansion started even earlier, at the end of the 5th millennium BC, and continued in the 4th millennium. Large masses of Uruk migrants settled in the South, and later in the North Caucasus, the sites in this general area include Habuba Kabira in Syria, and Arslantepe in Turkey. Uruk expansion to the northeast included sites like Godin Tepe in Iran, Tepe Gawra, in northwest Iraq, is another important site with deep stratigraphy that includes the Uruk period in later layers. Hamoukar is a site in northeastern Syria that has been recently excavated. Uruk enclaves have also identified at Tell Brak and Nineveh in northern Mesopotamia, and on the Syrian Euphrates at Qrayya. On the Euphrates in Anatolia, Uruk enclaves were found at Hassek Hoyuk, Samsat and these early city-states had strong signs of government organization, evident even in items such as cheap, mass-produced beveled rim bowls which were made to be discarded. These bowls may have handed out at community outings, such as large-scale constructions. The cities grew to cover up to 250 acres and supported up to 10, the Uruk world system, the dynamics of expansion of early Mesopotamian civilisation. Chicago, London, The University of Chicago Press Crawford, Harriet E. W. Sumer, the Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. Lamb, Hubert H. Climate, History, and the Modern World, History of Mesopotamia History of Sumer Jawa

9.
Hurrians
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The Hurrians, also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter, were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian, and lived in Anatolia, the largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a population of Hurrians. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples and their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. According to a hypothesis by I. M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians. The Hurrians spoke an ergative-agglutinative language conventionally called Hurrian, which is unrelated to neighbouring Semitic or Indo-European languages, the Iron Age Urartian language is closely related to or a direct descendant of Hurrian. Several notable Russian linguists, such as S. A. Starostin and V. V. Ivanov, have claimed that Hurrian and Hattic were related to the Northeast Caucasian languages. Texts in the Hurrian language in cuneiform have been found at Hattusa, Ugarit, as well as in one of the longest of the Amarna letters, written by King Tushratta of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III. It was the only long Hurrian text known until a collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite translation was discovered at Hattusa in 1983. Hurrian names occur sporadically in northwestern Mesopotamia and the area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age and their presence was attested at Nuzi, Urkesh and other sites. They eventually infiltrated and occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east, the Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh during the third millennium BCE, there is evidence that they were initially allied with the east Semitic Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad. This region hosted other rich cultures, the city-state of Urkesh had some powerful neighbors. At some point in the second millennium BCE, the Northwest Semitic speaking Amorite kingdom of Mari to the south subdued Urkesh. The Assyrians then made themselves masters over Mari and much of north east Amurru in the late 19th, shubat-Enlil, was made the capital of this Old Assyrian empire by Shamshi Adad I at the expense of the earlier capital of Assur. The Hurrians also migrated further west in this period, by 1725 BCE they are found also in parts of northern Syria, such as Alalakh. The mixed Amorite–Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BCE, Hurrians also settled in the coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna, southern Anatolia. Yamhad eventually weakened vis-a-vis the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences, the Hittites were influenced by both the Hurrian and Hattian cultures over the course of several centuries

10.
Max Mallowan
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Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the husband of Dame Agatha Christie. Born Edgar Mallowan in Wandsworth on 6 May 1904, he was the son of Frederick Mallowan and he was educated at Rokeby School and Lancing College and studied classics at New College, Oxford. He first worked as an apprentice to Leonard Woolley at the site of Ur. It was at the Ur site, in 1930, that he first met Agatha Christie, the famous author and his excavations included the prehistoric village at Tell Arpachiyah, and the sites at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in the Upper Khabur area. He was also the first to excavate archaeological sites in the Balikh Valley, following the outbreak of the Second World War he served with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in North Africa, being based for part of 1943 at the ancient city of Sabratha. He was commissioned as an officer on probation in the Administrative and Special Duties Branch on 11 February 1941, promoted flying officer on 18 August 1941. At some point he held the rank of wing commander, for when he finally resigned his commission on 10 February 1954. After the war, in 1947, he was appointed Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology at the University of London, a position which he held until elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1962. In 1947, he became director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and directed the resumption of its work at Nimrud. Mallowan gave an account of his work in Twenty-five Years of Mesopotamian Discovery and his wife Agatha Christie described his work in Syria in Come, Mallowan was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1960 Queens Birthday Honours, and knighted in 1968. He and Dame Agatha Christie were among a number of married couples each of whom held knightly honours in their own right. He died on 19 August 1978, aged 74, in Wallingford, Oxfordshire and his widow Barbara, the second Lady Mallowan, died in Wallingford in 1993, aged 85. Sir Max Mallowan, 1904–1978, The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol.42, Come, Tell Me How You Live, An Archaeological Memoir. New York, Dodd, Mead and Company,1976, New York, Vintage/Ebury,1983, New York, HarperCollins,1999, Pleasantville, NY, New York, Dodd, Mead and Company,1977. Reprinted as Mallowans Memoirs, Agatha and the Archaeologist, Agatha Christie/Sir Max Mallowans blue plaque at Cholsey

11.
Tell (archaeology)
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In archaeology, a tell or tel is an artificial mound formed from the accumulated remains of people living on the same site for hundreds or thousands of years. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a top and sloping sides. Tells are most commonly associated with the archaeology of the ancient Near East, within the Near East, they are concentrated in less arid regions, including Upper Mesopotamia, the Southern Levant, Anatolia and Iran. A tell is a hill created by many generations of people living and rebuilding on the same spot. Over time, the level rises, forming a mound, the single biggest contributor to the mass of a tell are mud bricks, which disintegrate rapidly. Excavating a tell can reveal buried structures such as government or military buildings, religious shrines and homes and they often overlap horizontally, vertically, or both. Archaeologists excavate tell sites to interpret architecture, purpose, and date of occupation, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press – via Internet Archive

12.
Khabur (Euphrates)
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Ultraman is a Japanese tokusatsu television series that first aired in 1966. Ultraman is a follow-up to the television series Ultra Q, though not technically a sequel or spin-off, the show was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, and was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System from July 17,1966 to April 9,1967, with a total of 39 episodes. Although Ultraman is the first series to feature an Ultra-Crusader, it is actually the second show in the Ultra Series, in fact, Ultraman opens with the Ultra Q logo exploding into the Ultraman logo. Ultraman, and its hero, became a major pop culture phenomenon in Japan, spawning dozens of sequels, spin-offs, imitators. Ultramans central characters were created by Eiji Tsuburaya from Tsuburaya Productions, the shows predecessor was a series called Ultra Q, a black-and-white 28-episode series very much like the original Outer Limits. The name Woo ended up being used for an unrelated, yeti-like monster. Later, Tsuburaya Productions would ultimately produce a series dubbed Bio Planet WoO, in January 2006, Bemlar, then retitled Scientific Special Search Party, Bemlar, The main characters are a defense force, with the same Japanese name as the Science Special Search Party. One of the members, unknown to anyone, gained the ability to transform into a giant birdlike humanoid monster called Bemlar, who defends Earth from monsters, aliens and other threats. Unlike Woo, Bemlar was a tough and righteous fighter, and he looked similar in design to the title monster of the 1967 kaiju film Gappa. The plot was scrapped when it was worried viewers might have trouble telling the monsters apart, redman, The title hero of this project slightly resembled Ultraman as he came to be known, but he looked more demonic and had horns. He came to Earth after his planet was destroyed by aliens from Planet X, the characteristic Color Timer, more familiar to American audiences as the warning light on Ultramans chest, was added at the eleventh hour. The first series begins when Science Special Search Party member Shin Hayata is flying his plane, the sphere turns out to be the transport for a giant red-and-silver being who calls himself Ultraman. Feeling remorse for having killed the human, he merges his essence with Hayata to save him, the Ultraman series used various monster costumes, known as kaiju in Japan, prior to other series such as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. The principals were played by famous monster suit actor Haruo Nakajima, another Toho actor, Satoshi Bin Furuya, was sought out for the role of Ultraman, because of his tall stature and perfect proportions. Nakajima had an outdoor-sports and martial-arts background, and they decided that Ultraman would not seem alien if he was using earth-bound martial arts techniques. So Ultramans fighting style was a mixture of grappling, Greco-Roman wrestling, and some Japanese martial arts, often costumes of famous monsters like Godzilla and Baragon would be recycled and altered, sometimes with nothing more than spray paint and often while the actor was still inside. Nakajima quipped once that the gait of some of the monsters he portrayed was due less to his acting than to the fumes he had to endure. Also, the expense of repairing the scale cities and landscapes used for battle scenes required economy of movement, not all monsters resembled Godzilla or a dinosaur

13.
Al-Hasakah
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Al-Hasakah, also known as Al-Hasakeh, Al-Kasaka or simply Hasakah, is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate and it is located in the far northeastern corner of Syria. With a population of 188,160 residents in 2004, Al-Hasakah is among the ten largest cities in Syria and it is the administrative center of a nahiyah consisting of 108 localities with a combined population of 251,570 in 2004. Al-Hasakah has a diverse population of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians. The Khabur River runs through Al-Hasakah and the rest of the governorate, as a preliminary result of the ongoing Syrian Civil War, Al-Hasakah today is situated in Jazira Canton within the autonomous Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava framework. Al-Hasakah is 80 kilometres south of the Turkish border-city of Qamishli, the Khabur River, a tributary of the Euphrates River flows through the city, downriver from Ras al-Ayn, another border town. The Jaghjagh River flows into the Khabur River at Al-Hasakah, in the city centre, an ancient tell is identified by Dominique Charpin as the location of the city of Qirdahat. Another possibility is that it was the site of the ancient Aramean city of Magarisu, the etymology of Magarisu is Aramaic and means pasture land. The city was the capital of the Aramean state of Bit-Yahiri invaded by Assyrian kings Tukulti-Ninurta II, excavations in the tell discovered materials dating to the Middle-Assyrian, Byzantine and Islamic eras. The last level of occupation ended in the fifteenth century, a period of 1500 years separated between the Middle-Assyrian level and the Byzantine level. In Ottoman times the town was insignificant, todays settlement was established in April 1922 by a French military post. After the expulsion and genocide of the Armenians in the then Ottoman Empire many refugees fled to the city, during the French mandate period, Assyrians, fleeing ethnic cleansings in Iraq during the Simele massacre, established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s. French troops were stationed on the Citadel Hill during that time, in 1942 there were 7,835 inhabitants in al-Hasakah, several schools, two churches and a gas station. The new city grew from the 1950s to the center of the region. The economic boom of the cities of Qamishli and al-Hasakah was a result of the projects started in the 1960s which transformed Northeast Syria into the main cotton-growing area. The 1970s brought oil production from the oil fields of Qara Shuk, according to eyewitnesses, the action was a protest against the Syrian government. In 2012, Al-Hasakah which has a large Kurdish population, began witnessing protests of several people against the Syrian government. From 2013, the associated with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. There were also clashes in the city between an Arab insurgent group and the YPG, on 1 August 2016 the Syrian Democratic Council opened a public office in Al-Hasakah

14.
Upper Mesopotamia
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Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. This region is approximately correspondent with what was Assyria from the 25th century BC through to the mid-7th century AD and it extends down the Tigris to Samarra and down the Euphrates to Hit. The Khabur River runs for over 400 km across the plain, from Turkey in the north, the major settlements are Mosul, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Al Hasakah, Diyarbakır and Qamishli. The western, Syrian part, is contiguous with the Syrian Al-Hasakah Governorate and is described as Syrias breadbasket. The eastern, Iraqi part, includes and extends slightly beyond the Iraqi Ninewa Governorate, in the north it includes the Turkish provinces of Şanlıurfa, Mardin, and parts of Diyarbakır Province. The name al-Jazira has been used since the 7th century CE by Islamic sources to refer to the section of Mesopotamia. The name means island, and at one time referred to the land between the two rivers, which in Aramaic is Bit Nahren. Historically the name referred to as little as the Sinjar plain coming down from the Sinjar Mountains, in pre-Abbasid times the western and eastern boundaries seem to have fluctuated, sometimes including what is now northern Syria to the west and Adiabene in the east. Al-Jazira is characterised as an outwash or alluvial plain, quite distinct from the Syrian Desert and lower-lying central Mesopotamia, however the area includes eroded hills, the region has several parts to it. In the northwest is one of the largest salt flats in the world, further south, extending from Mosul to near Basra is a sandy desert not unlike the Empty Quarter. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the region has been plagued by drought and this is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus the starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain Karaca Dağ in southern Turkey, where the closest relative to modern wheat still grows wild, domestication of goats and sheep followed within a few generations, but didnt become widespread for more than a millennium. Weaving and pottery followed about two years later. Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC—over five thousand years older than Stonehenge—and thus the absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere, as far as we know today no well-established farming societies existed at the time. Farming seemed to be experimental and only a smallish supplement to continued hunting and gathering. After all, Göbekli Tepe lies just 32 km from Karaca Dağ, the questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East. Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far, Upper Mesopotamia is the heartland of ancient Assyria, founded circa the 25th century BC

15.
Akkadian Empire
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The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant, and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan in the Arabian Peninsula. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed an intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, the Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants, the Bible refers to Akkad in Genesis 10,10, which states that the beginning of Nimrods kingdom was in the land of Akkad. Nimrod is a Hebrew name not attested in Mesopotamians sources, many have pointed out similarities with the legend of Gilgamesh who founded Uruk, which is said to be the city Nimrod came to power. Today, some 7,000 texts from the Akkadian period alone are known, many later texts from the successor states of Assyria and Babylonia also deal with the Akkadian Empire. Understanding of the Akkadian Empire continues to be hampered by the fact that its capital Akkad has not yet been located, likewise, material that is thought to be Akkadian continues to be in use into the Ur III period. Many of the recent insights on the Akkadian Empire have come from excavations in the Upper Khabur area in modern northeastern Syria which was to become a part of Assyria after the fall of Akkad. For example, excavations at Tell Mozan brought to light a sealing of Taram-Agade, an unknown daughter of Naram-Sin. The excavators at nearby Tell Leilan have used the results from their investigations to argue that the Akkadian Empire came to an end due to a sudden drought, the so-called 4.2 kiloyear event. The impact of this event on Mesopotamia in general, and on the Akkadian Empire in particular. The Akkadian Period is contemporary with, EB IV, EB IVA and EJ IV, the absolute dates of their reigns are approximate. The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and city of Akkad, although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon, together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times. Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-Zage-Si in the Battle of Uruk, the earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of Laibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, One legend related of Sargon in Assyrian times says that My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not

16.
Mitanni
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Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca.1500 BC–1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon, at the beginning of its history, Mitannis major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni, the Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c.1475 and c.1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, they used the language of the people which was at that time a non Indo-Iranian language. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria, the Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Charchamesh. For a time also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Assur. To the east, they had relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi, in the south, it extended from Aleppo across to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its centre was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals, Taite and Washshukanni called Taidu and Ushshukana respectively in Assyrian sources, the whole area allows agriculture without artificial irrigation, cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking populations, the Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the kingdom and were used interchangeably. Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri, located in northeastern Syria, a Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a King of the Hurri. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders Hurri as Hanigalbat, Tushratta, who styles himself king of Mitanni in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni nhrn, which is pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for river. The name Mitanni is first found in the memoirs of the Syrian wars of the astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet. The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain, a treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, the common peoples language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic

17.
Middle Assyrian Empire
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By the reign of Eriba-Adad I Mitanni influence over Assyria was on the wane. A pro-Assyria faction appeared at the royal Mitanni court, Eriba-Adad I had thus finally broken Mitanni influence over Assyria, and in turn had now made Assyria an influence over Mitanni affairs. Ashur-uballit I succeeded the throne of Assyria in 1365 BC, and proved to be a fierce, ambitious, Assyrian pressure from the southeast and Hittite pressure from the north-west, enabled Ashur-uballit I to break Mitanni power. This marriage led to results for Babylonia, as the Kassite faction at court murdered the half Assyrian Babylonian king. Assur-uballit I promptly invaded Babylonia to avenge his son-in-law, entering Babylon, Ashur-uballit I then attacked and defeated Mattiwaza, the Mitanni king, despite attempts by the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, now fearful of growing Assyrian power, to help the Mitanni. The lands of the Mitanni and Hurrians were duly appropriated by Assyria, making it a large and he described himself as a Great-King in letters to the Hittite kings. The successor of Enlil-nirari, Arik-den-ili, consolidated Assyrian power, and successfully campaigned in the Zagros Mountains to the east, subjugating the Lullubi, in Syria, he defeated Semitic tribes of the so-called Ahlamu group, who were possibly predecessors of the Arameans or an Aramean tribe. He then moved into north eastern Asia Minor, conquering Shupria, adad-nirari I made further gains to the south, annexing Babylonian territory and forcing the Kassite rulers of Babylon into accepting a new frontier agreement in Assyrias favor. Adad-niraris inscriptions are more detailed than any of his predecessors and he declares that the gods of Mesopotamia called him to war, a statement used by most subsequent Assyrian kings. He referred to himself again as Sharru Rabi and conducted extensive building projects in Ashur, in 1274 BC, Shalmaneser I ascended the throne. He proved to be a warrior king. He then attacked the Mitanni-Hurrians, defeating both King Shattuara and his Hittite and Aramaean allies, finally destroying the Hurri-Mitanni kingdom in the process. Shalmaneser I installed an Assyrian prince, Ilu-ippada as ruler of Mitanni, with Assyrian governors such as Meli-sah, the Hittites, having failed to save Mitanni, allied with Babylon in an unsuccessful economic war against Assyria for many years. Like his father, Shalmaneser was a builder and he further expanded the city of Kalhu at the juncture of the Tigris. Shalmanesers son and successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I, won a victory against the Hittites and their king Tudhaliya IV at the Battle of Nihriya. He then conquered Babylonia, taking Kashtiliash IV as a captive and ruled there himself as king for seven years, taking on the old title King of Sumer and Akkad first used by Sargon of Akkad. Tukulti-Ninurta I thus became the first Akkadian speaking native Mesopotamian to rule the state of Babylonia, its founders having been foreign Amorites, Tukulti-Ninurta petitioned the god Shamash before beginning his counter offensive. He then proclaimed king of Karduniash, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of Sippar and Babylon, king of Tilmun

18.
Abbasid Caliphate
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The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic caliphates to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The Abbasid dynasty descended from Muhammads youngest uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib and they ruled as caliphs, for most of their period from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after assuming authority over the Muslim empire from the Umayyads in 750 CE. The Abbasid caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, the political power of the caliphs largely ended with the rise of the Buyids and the Seljuq Turks. Although Abbasid leadership over the vast Islamic empire was reduced to a ceremonial religious function. The capital city of Baghdad became a center of science, culture, philosophy and this period of cultural fruition ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan. The Abbasid line of rulers, and Muslim culture in general, though lacking in political power, the dynasty continued to claim authority in religious matters until after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. The Abbasid caliphs were Arabs descended from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad, the Abbasids claimed to be the true successors of Prophet Muhammad in replacing the Umayyad descendants of Banu Umayya by virtue of their closer bloodline to Muhammad. The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking their moral character, according to Ira Lapidus, The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali. The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, Muhammad ibn Ali, a great-grandson of Abbas, began to campaign for the return of power to the family of Prophet Muhammad, the Hashimites, in Persia during the reign of Umar II. During the reign of Marwan II, this culminated in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam. On 9 June 747, Abu Muslim successfully initiated a revolt against Umayyad rule. Close to 10,000 soldiers were under Abu Muslims command when the hostilities began in Merv. General Qahtaba followed the fleeing governor Nasr ibn Sayyar west defeating the Umayyads at the Battle of Nishapur, the Battle of Gorgan, after this loss, Marwan fled to Egypt, where he was subsequently assassinated. The remainder of his family, barring one male, were also eliminated, immediately after their victory, As-Saffah sent his forces to Central Asia, where his forces fought against Tang expansion during the Battle of Talas. Barmakids, who were instrumental in building Baghdad, introduced the worlds first recorded paper mill in Baghdad, As-Saffah focused on putting down numerous rebellions in Syria and Mesopotamia. The Byzantines conducted raids during these early distractions, the first change the Abbasids, under Al-Mansur, made was to move the empires capital from Damascus, in Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq. Baghdad was established on the Tigris River in 762, a new position, that of the vizier, was also established to delegate central authority, and even greater authority was delegated to local emirs. During Al-Mansurs time control of Al-Andalus was lost, and the Shiites revolted and were defeated a year later at the Battle of Bakhamra, the Abbasids had depended heavily on the support of Persians in their overthrow of the Umayyads

19.
Semitic people
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Semitic people or Semitic cultures was a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group who speak or spoke the Semitic languages. The terminology was first used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the term Semitic, together with the parallel terms Hamitic and Japhetic, is now largely obsolete outside of linguistics. However, in archaeology, the term is used informally as a kind of shorthand for ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. In the racialist classifications of Carleton S, some recent genetic studies have found that they have some common ancestry. The terms anti-Semite or antisemitism came by a route to refer more narrowly to anyone who was hostile or discriminatory towards Jews in particular. Steinthal summed up these predispositions as Semitism, and so Steinschneider characterised Renans ideas as anti-Semitic prejudice and he accused them of being liberals, a people without roots who had Judaized Germans beyond salvation. In 1879 Marrs adherents founded the League for Anti-Semitism, which concerned itself entirely with anti-Jewish political action, Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples Hamitic Japhetites Generations of Noah Anidjar, Gil. Semitic genetics Semitic language family tree included under Afro-Asiatic in SILs Ethnologue, the south Arabian origin of ancient Arabs The Edomite Hyksos connection The perished Arabs The Midianites of the north Ancient Semitic peoples

20.
Fertile Crescent
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The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta. Having originated in the study of ancient history, the concept developed and today retains meanings in international geopolitics. In current usage, all definitions of the Fertile Crescent include Mesopotamia, the land in and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the Levant, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The region saw the development of some of the earliest human civilizations, technological advances made in the region include the development of writing, glass, the wheel, agriculture, and the use of irrigation. It is a region consisting chiefly of mountains in the north, the end of the western wing is Palestine, Assyria makes up a large part of the center, while the end of the eastern wing is Babylonia. This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the Fertile Crescent and this desert-bay is a limestone plateau of some height—too high indeed to be watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, which have cut cañons obliquely across it. Hence we are obliged to coin a term and call it the Fertile Crescent, water sources include the Jordan River. The inner boundary is delimited by the dry climate of the Syrian Desert to the south, around the outer boundary are the Anatolian highlands to the north and the Sahara Desert to the west. As crucial as rivers and marshlands were to the rise of civilization in the Fertile Crescent, the area is important as the bridge between Africa and Eurasia. Coupled with the Saharan pump theory, this Middle Eastern land-bridge is of importance to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna. The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates, and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many r type annual plants, the regions dramatic variety of elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. The Fertile Crescent has a record of past human activity. The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements and this region, alongside Mesopotamia, also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age. There is also evidence from the region for writing and the formation of hierarchical statelevel societies. This has earned the region the nickname The cradle of civilization and it is in this region where the first libraries appeared, some 5,000 years ago. The oldest known library was found in northern Syria, in the ruins of Ebla— a major commercial center that was destroyed around 1650 BCE, both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is today Turkey. Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year, to protect against flooding, they made levees. Since the Bronze Age, the regions natural fertility has been extended by irrigation works

21.
Engraved gem
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An engraved gem is a small gemstone, usually semi-precious, that has been carved, in the Western tradition normally with images or inscriptions only on one face. The engraving of gemstones was a luxury art form in the ancient world. Strictly speaking, engraving means carving in intaglio, but relief carvings are covered by the term. This article uses cameo in its sense, to denote a carving exploiting layers of differently coloured stone. The activity is also called gem carving, and the artists gem-cutters, vessels like the Cup of the Ptolemies and heads or figures carved in the round are also known as hardstone carvings and similar terms. Glyptics, or glyptic art, covers the field of small carved stones, including seals and inscriptions. A finely carved seal was practical, as it made more difficult – the distinctive personal signature did not really exist in antiquity. Gems were mostly cut by using abrasive powder from harder stones in conjunction with a hand-drill, emery has been mined for abrasive powder on Naxos since antiquity. Some early types of seal were cut by hand, rather than a drill, there is no evidence that magnifying lenses were used by gem cutters in antiquity. A medieval guide to gem-carving techniques survives from Theophilus Presbyter, byzantine cutters used a flat-edged wheel on a drill for intaglio work, while Carolingian ones used round-tipped drills, it is unclear where they learnt this technique from. In intaglio gems at least, the cut surface is usually very well preserved. The colour of several gemstones can be enhanced by a number of methods, using heat, sugar. Many of these can be shown to have used since antiquity – since the 7th millennium BC in the case of heating. The technique has an ancient tradition in the Near East, and is represented in all or most early cultures from the area, and these were made in various types of stone, not all hardstone. The Greek tradition emerged in Ancient Greek art under Minoan influence on mainland Helladic culture, pre-Hellenic Ancient Egyptian seals tend to have inscriptions in hieroglyphs rather than images. The Biblical Book of Exodus describes the form of the hoshen, round or oval Greek gems are found from the 8th and 7th centuries BC, usually with animals in energetic geometric poses, often with a border marked by dots or a rim. Early examples are mostly in softer stones, Gems of the 6th century are more often oval, with a scarab back, and human or divine figures as well as animals, the scarab form was apparently adopted from Phoenicia. The forms are sophisticated for the period, despite the small size of the gems

22.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia

23.
Levant
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The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term Levant entered English in the late 15th century from French and it derives from the Italian Levante, meaning rising, implying the rising of the sun in the east. As such, it is equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq. Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine, in 1581, England set up the Levant Company to monopolize commerce with the Ottoman Empire. The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and this is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used synonymously with Syria-Palestine. Some scholars misunderstood the term thinking that it derives from the name of Lebanon, today the term is typically used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. It does not include Anatolia, the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper, the Sinai Peninsula is sometimes included. The Levant has been described as the crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa, the populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and a very long history. They are often referred to as Levantines, the term Levant, which appeared in English in 1497, originally meant the East in general or Mediterranean lands east of Italy. It is borrowed from the French levant rising, referring to the rising of the sun in the east, the phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare, meaning lift, raise. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή, in Germanic Morgenland, in Italian, in Hungarian Kelet, in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant, most notably, Orient and its Latin source oriens meaning east, is literally rising, deriving from Latin orior rise. The notion of the Levant has undergone a process of historical evolution in usage, meaning. While the term Levantine originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it came to refer to regional native. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, at this time, the Far East was known as the Upper Levant. In early 19th-century travel writing, the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman empire, in 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon was called the Levant states, today, Levant is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to it being a wider, yet relevant, archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant. Two academic journals were launched, Journal of Levantine Studies, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review

24.
Syrian Civil War
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The Syrian Civil War is an armed conflict taking place in Syria. Syrian opposition groups formed the Free Syrian Army and seized control of the area surrounding Aleppo, over time, some factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015, the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel joined forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in support of the Syrian government, while beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO countries began launching airstrikes against ISIL. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL, and some groups of severe human rights violations. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis, over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. Syria became an independent republic in 1946, although democratic rule ended with a coup in March 1949, a popular uprising against military rule in 1954 saw the army transfer power to civilians. From 1958 to 1961, a union with Egypt replaced Syrias parliamentary system with a highly centralized presidential government. The secular Baath Syrian Regional Branch government came to power through a successful coup détat in 1963, for the next several years Syria went through additional coups and changes in leadership. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, declared himself President, on 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. They labeled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule, the government survived a series of armed revolts by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. Upon Hafez al-Assads death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain, initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, the Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms, Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs, make up roughly 74 percent of the population. Syria Muslims are 74 percent Sunnis, and 13 percent Shias,3 percent were Druze, not all of the Sunnis are Arabs. Bashar is married to a Sunni, with whom he has several children and he is affiliated with the sect that his parents belong to, the minority Alawite sect which comprises an estimated 8-12 percent of the total population. Assyrians, an indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian Semitic people, numbering approximately 500,000, are mainly in northeast Syria. A larger population lives over the border in northern Iraq, other ethnic groups include Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Greeks, Mhallami, Kawliya, Yezidi, Shabaks, and Mandeans. Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, the country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates

25.
Tabula Peutingeriana
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Tabula Peutingeriana, also referred to as Peutingers Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated itinerarium showing the layout of cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The map is a 13th-century parchment copy of the Roman original, and covers Europe, North Africa, and parts of Asia. The original map which the copy is based on is thought to date to the 4th or 5th century and was itself based on a map prepared by Agrippa during the reign of the emperor Augustus. Named after the 16th-century German antiquarian Konrad Peutinger, the map is today kept at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. After Agrippas death in 12 BC, that map was engraved in marble and put on display in the Porticus Vipsania in the Campus Agrippae area in Rome, bowersock concluded that the original source is likely the map made by Vipsanius Agrippa. The original Roman map, of which this is the surviving copy, was last revised in the 4th or early 5th century. The presence of cities of Germania Inferior that were destroyed in the mid-fifth century also provides a terminus ante quem. The Tabula Peutingeriana is the known surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus. The map itself was created by a monk in Colmar in modern-day eastern France in 1265 and it is a parchment scroll,0.34 metres high and 6.75 metres long, assembled from eleven sections, a medieval reproduction of the original scroll. The map shows many Roman settlements and the roads connecting them, as well as features such as rivers, mountains, forests. The distances between settlements are also given, in total no less than 555 cities and 3,500 other place names are shown on the map. The three most important cities of the Roman Empire at the time – Rome, Constantinople and Antioch – are represented with special iconic decoration. Besides the totality of the empire, the map also shows areas in the Near East, India and the Ganges, Sri Lanka, and even an indication of China. It even shows a Temple to Augustus at Muziris on the modern-day Malabar Coast, the map appears to be based on itineraries, lists of destinations along Roman roads, as the distances between points along the routes are indicated. Travelers would not have possessed anything so sophisticated as a modern map, the Peutinger Table represents these roads as a series of stepped lines along which destinations have been marked in order of travel. The shape of the parchment pages accounts for the rectangular layout. However, a similarity to the coordinates of Ptolemys earth-mapping gives some writers hope that some terrestrial representation was intended by the unknown original compilers. The Peutinger family kept possession of the map for more than two hundred years until it was sold in 1714 and it is today conserved at the Austrian National Library at the Hofburg palace in Vienna

26.
Semitic languages
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The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family originating in the Middle East. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the most widely spoken Semitic languages today are Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Hebrew, Aramaic and Maltese. Among them are the Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of the European Union. The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology and that is, word roots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants. Words are composed out of not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes. For example, in Arabic, the root meaning write has the form k-t-b, the similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages was accepted by Jewish and Islamic scholars since medieval times. Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages, however, neither scholar named this grouping as Semitic. Viewed from this too, with respect to the alphabet used. Previously these languages had been known as the Oriental languages in European literature. In the 19th century, Semitic became the name, however. There are several locations proposed as sites for prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples, Mesopotamia, The Levant, Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula. Both the Near East and North Africa saw an influx of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, followed later by non-Semitic Muslim Iranian and Turkic peoples. The Arabs spread their Central Semitic language to North Africa where it gradually replaced Coptic and many Berber languages, with the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical status, Arabic rapidly became one of the worlds main literary languages. Its spread among the masses took much longer, however, as many of the populations outside the Arabian Peninsula only gradually abandoned their languages in favour of Arabic. As Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became the language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen, the Fertile Crescent. Most of the Maghreb followed, particularly in the wake of the Banu Hilals incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language of many inhabitants of al-Andalus. After the collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt into modern Sudan, soon after, the Beni Ḥassān brought Arabization to Mauritania. Meanwhile, Semitic languages were diversifying in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where, under heavy Cushitic influence, they split into a number of languages, including Amharic, Arabic languages and dialects are currently the native languages of majorities from Mauritania to Oman, and from Iraq to the Sudan

27.
First Babylonian Dynasty
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The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated as there is a Babylonian King List A and a Babylonian King List B. In this chronology, the years of List A are used due to their wide usage. The reigns in List B are longer, in general, thus any evidence must come from surrounding regions and written records. Not much is known about the kings from Sumuabum through Sin-muballit other than the fact they were Amorites rather than indigenous Akkadians, what is known, however, is that they accumulated little land. When Hammurabi ascended the throne of Babylon, the empire consisted of a few towns in the surrounding area, Dilbat, Sippar, Kish. Once Hammurabi was king, his military victories gained land for the empire, however, Babylon remained but one of several important areas in Mesopotamia, along with Assyria, then ruled by Shamshi-Adad I, and Larsa, then ruled by Rim-Sin I. In Hammurabis thirtieth year as king, he began to establish Babylon as the center of what would be a great empire. In that year, he conquered Larsa from Rim-Sin I, thus gaining control over the urban centers of Nippur, Ur, Uruk. In essence, Hammurabi gained control over all of south Mesopotamia, the other formidable political power in the region in the 2nd millennium was Eshnunna, which Hammurabi succeeded in capturing in c. Babylon exploited Eshnunnas well-established commercial trade routes and the stability that came with them. It was not long before Hammurabis army took Assyria and parts of the Zagros Mountains, Hammurabis other name was Hammurapi-ilu, meaning Hammurapi the god or perhaps Hammurapi is god. He could have been Amraphel king of Shinar or Sinear in the Jewish records and the Bible, Abraham lived from 1871 to 1784, according to modern interpretations of the Old Testaments figures that have been usually reckoned in modern half years before the Exodus, from equinox to equinox. The Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa are famous, and several books had been published about them, several dates have been offered but the old dates of many sourcebooks seems to be outdated and incorrect. A few sources, some printed almost a century ago, claim that the text mentions an occultation of the Venus by the moon. However, this may be a misinterpretation, calculations support 1659 for the fall of Babylon, based on the statistical probability of dating based on the planets observations. The presently accepted middle chronology is too low from the point of view. A text about the fall of Babylon by the Hittites of Mursilis I at the end of Samsuditanas reign which tells about an eclipse is crucial for a correct Babylonian chronology. The pair of lunar and solar eclipses occurred in the month Shimanu, the lunar eclipse took place on February 9,1659 BC

28.
Platform mound
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A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity. The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and these platform mounds are usually four-sided truncated pyramids, steeply sided, with steps built of wooden logs ascending one side of the earthworks. When European first arrived in North America, the peoples of the Mississippian culture were still using and building platform mounds, many of the mounds underwent multiple episodes of mound construction, with the mound becoming larger with each event. The site of a mound was usually a site with special significance and this site was then covered with a layer of basket-transported soil and clay known as mound fill and a new structure constructed on its summit. Sometimes the surface of the mounds would get a several inches thick coat of brightly colored clay and this pattern could be repeated many times during the life of a site. The large amounts of fill needed for the mounds left large holes in the now known by archaeologists as borrow pits. These pits were sometimes left to fill with water and stocked with fish, monks Mound had at least ten separate periods of mound construction over a 200-year period. Some of the terraces and aprons on the mound seem to have added to stop slumping of the enormous mound. Although the mounds were primarily meant as substructure mounds for buildings or activities, sometimes burials did occur, intrusive burials occurred when a grave was dug into a mound and the body or a bundle of defleshed, disarticulated bones was deposited into it. Also interred in this mound was a set of white marble Mississippian stone statues. His logic is based on analogy to ethnographic and historic data on related Native American tribal groups in the Southeastern United States. Knight suggests a microcosmic ritual organization based around a native earth autochthony, agriculture, fertility, and purification scheme, in which mounds and the site layout replicate cosmology. Mound rebuilding episodes are construed as rituals of burial and renewal, while the four-sided construction acts to replicate the flat earth, platform mounds in the Arizona Desert. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, geographic distribution and symbolism of colored mound architecture in the Mississippian Southeast. Mississippian capitals, an investigation of Precolumbian political structure. Sociopolitical implications of Mississippian mound volume, raised ground, Razed structure, Ceramic chronology, occupation and chiefly authority on Mound P at Moundville. Kitt Chappell, Sally A. Cahokia, Mirror of the Cosmos

29.
Geography of Mesopotamia
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The geography of Mesopotamia, encompassing its ethnology and history, centred on the two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. In the earliest recorded times, the portion was included in Mesopotamia. Apart from Assur, the capital of Assyria, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Kalaḫ. The reason was its abundant supply of water, whereas the great plain on the side had to depend on streams flowing into the Euphrates. Mesopotamia means between two rivers in ancient Greek, the oldest known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the 4th century BCE, when it was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria. The neighboring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Upper or Northern Mesopotamia and Lower or Southern Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazirah, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. In modern scientific usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation, the numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now mostly a wilderness. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Euphrates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan. The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur or Asur, now Qalat Sherqat, on the bank of the Tigris. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was supplanted by Calah, Nineveh. In contrast with the plateau of Mesopotamia stretched the rich alluvial plain of Chaldea. The soil was fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Here stood Ur the earliest capital of the country, and Babylon, with its suburb, Borsippa, the primitive seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the worship of Ea the culture-god, was a little south of Ur on the west side of the Euphrates. The combined stream of the Euphrates and Tigris as it flowed through the marshes was known to the Babylonians as the ndr marrati, the salt river, a name originally applied to the Persian Gulf. This bank or kisad, together with the western bank of the Tigris, gave its name to the land of Chesed. In the early inscriptions of Lagash, the district is known as Gu-Edinna

30.
Uruk
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Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid 4th millennium BC. At its height c.2900 BC, Uruk probably had 50, 000–80,000 residents living in 6 km2 of walled area, the legendary king Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the Sumerian king list, ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. The site of Uruk was visited in 1849 by William Kennett Loftus who led the first excavations from 1850 to 1854, the Arabic name of Babylonia, al-ʿIrāq, is thought to be derived from the name Uruk, via Aramaic and possibly Middle Persian transmission. In myth and literature, Uruk was famous as the city of Gilgamesh. It is also believed Uruk is the biblical Erech, the city founded by Nimrod in Shinar. In addition to being one of the first cities, Uruk was the force of urbanization and state formation during the Uruk period. This period of 800 years saw a shift from small, agricultural villages to an urban center with a full-time bureaucracy, military. Although other settlements coexisted with Uruk, they were generally about 10 hectares while Uruk was significantly larger, the Uruk period culture exported by Sumerian traders and colonists had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. Ultimately, Uruk could not maintain control over colonies such as Tell Brak by military force. Geographic factors underpin Uruks unprecedented growth, the city was located in the southern part of Mesopotamia, an ancient site of civilization, on the Euphrates river. Through the gradual and eventual domestication of native grains from the Zagros foothills and extensive irrigation techniques and this domestication of grain and its proximity to rivers enabled Uruks growth into the largest Sumerian settlement, in both population and area, with relative ease. Uruks agricultural surplus and large population base facilitated processes such as trade, specialization of crafts, evidence from excavations such as extensive pottery and the earliest known tablets of writing support these events. Excavation of Uruk is highly complex because older buildings were recycled into newer ones, the topmost layer most likely originated in the Jemdet Nasr period and is built on structures from earlier periods dating back to the Ubaid period. According to the Sumerian king list, Uruk was founded by the king Enmerkar, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh builds the city wall around Uruk and is king of the city. Uruk went through phases of growth, from the Early Uruk period to the Late Uruk period. The city was formed two smaller Ubaid settlements merged. The temple complexes at their cores became the Eanna District and the Anu District dedicated to Inanna and Anu, the Anu District was originally called Kullaba prior to merging with the Eanna District

31.
4th millennium BC
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The 4th millennium BC spans the years 4000 through 3000 BC. Some of the changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing. The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established, world population in the course of the millennium doubled, approximately from 7 to 14 million people. C.4000 BC—First neolithic settlers in the island of Thera, Greece, C.4000 BC—Beaker from Susa is made. It is now at Musée du Louvre, Paris, 4000–2000 BC—People and animals, a detail of rock-shelter painting in Cogul, Lleida, Spain, are painted. It is now at Museo Arqueológico, Barcelona, C.3900 BC—5.9 kiloyear event, one of the most intense aridification events during the Holocene. It ended the Neolithic Subpluvial and likely initiated the most recent desiccation of the Sahara desert, triggering migration to river valleys, babylonian influence predominant in Mediterranean regions of Asia. In Colombia, circa 3600 BC, first rupestrian art Chiribiquete,3600 BC—Construction of the Ġgantija megalithic temple complex on the Island of Gozo, Malta, the worlds oldest extant unburied free-standing structures, and the worlds oldest religious structures. 3600–3000 BC—Construction of the Ta Ħaġrat and Kordin III temples on Malta,3500 Metalcasting began in the Mohenjodaro area. C.3500 BC—Figures of a man and a woman, from Cernavodă and they are now at National Historical Museum, Bucharest. 3500–3400 BC—Jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis is created, 3500–2340 BC—First cities developed in Southern Mesopotamia. The cuneiform script proper emerges from pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium, mesopotamias proto-literate period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries. The first documents written in the Sumerian language date to the 31st century. 3300–2900 BC—Construction of the Newgrange solar observatory/passage tomb in Ireland, 3300—Bronze Age starts in Indus Valley. C.3300 BC—Ötzi the Iceman dies near the border between Austria and Italy, only to be discovered in 1991 buried in a glacier of the Ötztal Alps. His cause of death is believed to be homicide, 3250–3000 BC—Construction of three megalithic temples at Tarxien, Malta. 3200–2500 BC—Construction of the Ħaġar Qim megalithic temple complex on Malta, C.3150 BC—Predynastic period ended in Ancient Egypt. The period includes 1st and 2nd Dynasties, C.3150 BC a lesser Tollmanns hypothetical bolide event may have occurred

32.
Tell Brak
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Tell Brak was an ancient city in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the village of Tell Brak,50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city. The citys original name is unknown, during the second half of the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar and later on, Nawar. Nagar prospered again by the 19th century BC, and came under the rule of different regional powers, in c.1500 BC, Tell Brak was a center of Mitanni before being destroyed by Assyria c.1300 BC. The city never regained its importance, remaining as a small settlement. Different peoples inhabited the city, including the Halafians, Semites, the culture of Tell Brak was defined by the different civilizations that inhabited it, and it was famous for its glyptic style, equids and glass. When independent, the city was ruled by an assembly or by a monarch. Tell Brak was a center due to its location between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia. It was excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937, then regularly by different teams between 1979 and 2011, when the work stopped due to the Syrian Civil War, the original name of the city is unknown, Tell Brak is the current name of the tell. East of the mound lies a lake named Khatuniah which was recorded as Lacus Beberaci in the Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana. The lake was named after Tell Brak which was the nearest camp in the area. The name Brak might therefore be an echo of the most ancient name, during the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar, which might be of Semitic origin and mean a cultivated place. The name Nagar ceased occurring following the Old Babylonian period, however and those scholars opt for a city closer to Urkesh which was also called Nawala/Nabula as the intended Nawar. The earliest period A, is dated to the proto Halaf culture c.6500 BC, many objects dated to that period were discovered including the Halaf pottery. By 5000 BC, Halaf culture transformed into Northern Ubaid, in southern Mesopotamia, the original Ubaid culture evolved into the Uruk period. The people of the southern Uruk period used military and commercial means to expand the civilization, in Northern Mesopotamia, the post Ubaid period is designated Late Chalcolithic / Northern Uruk period, during which, Tell Brak started to expand. Period Brak E witnessed the building of the walls. By the late 5th millennium BC, Tell Brak reached the size of c.55 hectares, area TW of the tell revealed the remains of a monumental building with two meters thick walls and a basalt threshold

33.
Alabaster
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Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft and often used for carving, as well as being processed for plaster powder. The term is used in different ways by archaeologists and the processing industry on the one hand. The first use is in a meaning, covering varieties of two different minerals, the fine-grained massive type of gypsum, as well as the fine-grained banded type of calcite. Geologists only define the gypsum variety as alabaster, chemically, gypsum is a hydrous sulfate of calcium, while calcite is a carbonate of calcium. Both types of alabaster have broadly similar properties and they are usually light-coloured, translucent and soft stones that have been used throughout human history mainly for carving decorative artifacts. Onyx-marble must be understood as a traditional, but geologically inaccurate term, in general, ancient alabaster is calcite in the wider Middle East, including Egypt and Mesopotamia, while it is gypsum in medieval Europe. Modern alabaster is calcite, but may be either. Both are easy to work and slightly water-soluble and they have been used for making a variety of indoor artworks and carvings, as they will not survive long outdoors. Moreover, calcite alabaster, being a carbonate, effervesces when treated with hydrochloric acid, the origin of the word alabaster is in Middle English through Old French alabastre, in turn derived from the Latin alabaster, and that from Greek ἀλάβαστρος or ἀλάβαστος. The Greek words were used to identify a vase made of alabaster and this name may be derived further from the Ancient Egyptian word a-labaste, which refers to vessels of the Egyptian goddess Bast. She was represented as a lioness and frequently depicted as such in figures placed atop these alabaster vessels, other suggestions include derivation from the town of Alabastron in Egypt, described in sometimes contradictory manner by Roman-era authors Pliny and Ptolemy and whose location is not yet known. The purest alabaster is a material of fine uniform grain, but it often is associated with an oxide of iron. The coarser varieties of gypsum alabaster are converted by calcination into plaster of Paris, the softness of alabaster enables it to be carved readily into elaborate forms, but its solubility in water renders it unsuitable for outdoor work. If alabaster with a smooth, polished surface is washed with dishwashing liquid, it will become rough, dull and whiter, losing most of its translucency and lustre. The finer kinds of alabaster are employed largely as a stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration and for the rails of staircases. Alabaster is mined and then sold in blocks to alabaster workshops, the effect of heating appears to be a partial dehydration of the gypsum. If properly treated, it closely resembles true marble and is known as marmo di Castellina. Alabaster is a stone and can be dyed into any colour or shade

34.
Jemdet Nasr period
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The Jemdet Nasr Period is an archaeological culture in southern Mesopotamia. It is generally dated from 3100–2900 BC and it is named after the type site Tell Jemdet Nasr, where the assemblage typical for this period was first recognized. Its geographical distribution is limited to south-central Iraq, the culture of the proto-historical Jemdet Nasr period is a local development out of the preceding Uruk period and continues into the Early Dynastic I period. In the early 1900s, clay tablets with a form of the Sumerian cuneiform script started to appear on the antiquities market. A collection of 36 tablets was bought by the German excavators of Shuruppak in 1903, while they thought that the tablets came from Tell Jemdet Nasr, it was later shown that they probably came from nearby Tell Uqair. Similar tablets were offered for sale by a French antiquities dealer in 1915, the Arabs told Langdon the finds came from Jemdet Nasr, a site some 26 kilometres northeast of Tell al-Uhaymir. Langdon was sufficiently impressed, visited the site and started excavations in 1926 and he uncovered a large mudbrick building with in it more of the distinctive pottery and a collection of 150 to 180 clay tablets bearing the proto-cuneiform script. Older scientific literature often used 3200–3000 BC as the beginning and end dates of the Jemdet Nasr Period, the period is nowadays dated from 3100–2900 BC based on radiocarbon dating. The hallmark of the Jemdet Nasr Period is its distinctive painted monochrome and polychrome pottery, designs are both geometric and figurative, the latter displaying trees and animals such as birds, fish, goats, scorpions, and snakes. Painted Jemdet Nasr Period pots were found in similar contexts at Tell Fara and Tell Gubba, apart from the distinctive pottery, the period is known as one of the formative stages in the development of the cuneiform script. The oldest clay tablets come from Uruk and date to the fourth millennium BC. By the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period, the script had undergone a number of significant changes. It originally consisted of pictographs, but by the time of the Jemdet Nasr Period it was already adopting simpler and it is also during this period that the script acquired its iconic wedge-shaped appearance. While the language in which these tablets were written cannot be identified with certainty, the texts deal without exception with administrative matters such as the rationing of foodstuffs or listing objects and animals. Literary genres like hymns and king lists, which very popular later in Mesopotamian history, are absent. Two different counting systems were in use, a system for animals and humans, for example, and a bisexagesimal system for things like grain, cheese. Contemporary archives have been found at Tell Uqair, Tell Khafajah, the economy seems to have been primarily concerned with subsistence based on agriculture and sheep-and-goat pastoralism and small-scale trade. Very few precious stones or exotic trade goods have been found at sites of this period, however, the homogeneity of the pottery across the southern Mesopotamian plain suggests intensive contacts and trade between settlements

35.
Eblaite language
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Eblaite /ˈɛblə. aɪt/ is an extinct Semitic language which was used during the third millennium BCE by the East Semitic speaking populations of Northern Syria. It was named after the ancient city of Ebla, in western modern Syria, variants of the language were also spoken in Mari and Nagar. According to Cyrus H. Gordon, although scribes might have spoken it sometimes, Eblaite was probably not spoken much, being rather a written lingua franca with East and West Semitic features. Eblaite has been described as an East Semitic language which may be close to pre-Sargonic Akkadian, its relation with the latter is debated. Caplice, Ignace Gelb and John Huehnergard, have the view that Eblaite is not to be seen as an early Akkadian dialect, Eblaite is considered an East-Semitic language which exhibits both West-Semitic and East-Semitic features. Grammatically, Eblaite is closer to Akkadian, but lexically and in some grammatical forms, the language is known from about 15,000 tablets written with cuneiform script which have been found since the 1970s, mostly in the ruins of the city of Ebla. Amorite and Eblaite, The Semitic Languages, the Linguistic Classification of Eblaite, Methods, Problems, and Results. In The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century, The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference, in The Akkadian Language in its Semitic Context, pp. 110–139. Eblaitica vol.2 at Google Books Eblaitica vol.4 at Google Books

36.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria

37.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership

38.
Khafajah
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Khafajah or Khafaje is an archaeological site in Diyala Province. It was part of the city-state of Eshnunna, the site lies 7 miles east of Baghdad and 12 miles southwest of Eshnunna. Khafajah was excavated for 7 seasons in the early 1930s primarily by an Oriental Institute of Chicago team led by Henri Frankfort with Thorkild Jacobsen, for two seasons, the site was worked by a joint team of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University of Pennsylvania. Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris, the site consists of four mounds, labeled A through D. The main one, Mound A, extends back as far as the Uruk period and contained a temple, a temple of the god Sin, not surely. The Dur-Samsuiluna fort was found on mounds B and C, Mound D contained private homes and a temple for the god Sin where the archive tablets where found in two heaps. Khafajah was occupied during the Early Dynastic Period, through the Sargonid Period, later, after Eshnunna was captured by Babylon, a fort was built at the site by Samsu-iluna of the First Babylonian Dynasty and named Dur-Samsuiluna. The history of Khafajah is known in more detail for a period of several decades as a result of the discovery of 112 clay tablets in a temple of Sin. The tablets constitute part of an archive and include mostly loan. The Oriental Institute of Chicago holds 57 of the tablets with the remainder being in the Iraq Museum

39.
Mari, Syria
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Mari, was an ancient Semitic city in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates river western bank and it flourished as a trade center and hegemonic state between 2900 BC and 1759 BC. Mari was first abandoned in the middle of the 26th century BC but was rebuilt and this second Mari engaged in a long war with its rival Ebla, and is known for its strong affinity with the Sumerian culture. It was destroyed in the 23rd century BC by the Akkadians who allowed the city to be rebuilt, the governors later became independent with the rapid disintegration of the Akkadian empire and rebuilt the city as a regional center in the middle Euphrates valley. The Shakkanakkus ruled Mari until the half of the 19th century BC when the dynasty collapsed for unknown reasons. A short time after the Shakkanakku collapse, Mari became the capital of the Amorite Lim dynasty, the Mariotes worshiped both Semitic and Sumerian deities and established their city as a center of old trade. The Amorites were West-Semites who began to settle the area before the 21st century BC, by the Lim dynastys era and they also revealed the wide trading networks of the 18th century BC, which connected areas as far as Afghanistan in Southern Asia and Crete in the Mediterranean region. The city is difficult to excavate, as it is buried deep under the layers of habitation. A defensive system against floods, composed of an embankment was unearthed. Other findings include one of the city gates, a beginning at the center and ending at the gate. The city was abandoned at the end of the Early Dynastic period II c.2550 BC for unknown reasons, around the beginning of the Early Dynastic period III, Mari was rebuilt and populated again. The new city kept many of the first city exterior features, including the internal rampart and gate. Also kept was the outer circular embankment measuring 1.9 km in diameter, at the heart of the city, a royal palace was built which also served as a temple. Four successive architectural levels from the second kingdoms palace have been unearthed, the first two levels were excavated, the findings include a temple named Enceinte Sacrée, which was the largest in the city but it is unknown for whom it was dedicated. Also unearthed were a pillared throne room and a hall that have three double wood pillars leading to the temple, six more temples were discovered in the city, including the temple called the Massif Rouge, and temples dedicated for Ninni-Zaza, Ishtarat, Ishtar, Ninhursag and Shamash. 2350 BC, which was sent to Irkab-Damu of Ebla, and in it, however, the reading of this letter is still problematic and many interpretations have been presented by scholars. The next king mentioned in the letter is Saʿumu, who conquered the lands of Raak and Nirum, the war continued with Išhtup-Išar of Mari conquest of Emar, at a time of Eblaite weakness in the mid-24th century BC. King Igrish-Halam of Ebla had to pay tribute to Iblul-Il of Mari, Enna-Dagan also received tribute, and his reign fell entirely within the reign of Irkab-Damu of Ebla, who managed to defeat Mari and end the tribute

40.
Tell Beydar
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Tell Beydar is a village and ancient site in the modern Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria. It was the Ancient Near Eastern city of Nabada and it is connected by road to Al-Darbasiyah on the Turkish border in the north. Nabada was first settled during the Early Dynastic period circa 2600 BC, by around 2500 BC a medium sized independent city-state had developed. At that point, it became a capital under the kingdom centered at Nagar. After the Jezirah region was conquered by the Akkadians, Nabada became an outpost of that empire, the city was than abandoned until re-occupied for a time circa 1400 BC by the Hurrians and again in the Neo-Assyrian and Hellenistic periods. The central site of Tell Beydar covers about 25 hectares, a much later 50 ha Hurrian/Neo-Assyrian site lies at the base of the tell. At the top of the tell there is a Hellenistic settlement, the team leads are Marc Lebeau and Antoine Suleiman. A number of institutions, including the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago have also participated. Besides the architectural and pottery findings from the excavation, almost 250 early cuneiform tablets and fragments were recovered, the tablets are agricultural records for the most part, but do establish some synchronisms with Tell Brak. The language used in the tablets is a variant of the Semitic Akkadian language, a number of clay sealing have also been recovered. Finds from Tell Beydar are on display in the Deir ez-Zor Museum

41.
Ebla tablets
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The Ebla tablets are a collection of as many as 1800 complete clay tablets,4700 fragments and many thousand minor chips found in the palace archives of the ancient city of Ebla, Syria. The tablets were discovered by Italian archaeologist Paolo Matthiae and his team in 1974–75 during their excavations at the ancient city of Tell Mardikh, the tablets, which were found in situ on collapsed shelves, retained many of their contemporary clay tags to help reference them. They all date to the period between ca.2500 BC and the destruction of the city ca.2250 BC, today, the tablets are being held in the Syrian museums of Aleppo, Damascus, and Idlib. The tablets were discovered just where they had fallen when their wooden shelves burned in the conflagration of Palace G. The burning shelving pancaked – collapsing in place and preserving the order of the tablets, Pettinato later retracted the designation and decided to call it simply Eblaite, the name by which it is known today. The purely phonetic use of Sumerian logograms marks an advance in the history of writing. The tablets provide a wealth of information on Syria and Canaan in the Early Bronze Age, and include the first known references to the Canaanites, Ugarit, the contents of the tablets reveal that Ebla was a major trade center. A main focus was economic records, inventories recording Eblas commercial and political relations with other Levantine cities, for example, they reveal that Ebla produced a range of beers, including one that appears to be named Ebla, for the city. Ebla was also responsible for the development of a trade network system between city-states in northern Syria. This system grouped the region into a community, which is clearly evidenced in the texts. There are king lists for the city of Ebla, royal ordinances, edicts, there are gazetteers listing place names, including a version of a standardized place-name list that has also been found at Abu Salabikh where it was dated to ca.2600 BC. The literary texts include hymns and rituals, epics, proverbs, many tablets include both Sumerian and Eblaite inscriptions with versions of three basic bilingual word-lists contrasting words in the two languages. The only tablets at Ebla that were exclusively in Sumerian are lexical lists. Shelved separately with the dictionaries, there were also syllabaries of Sumerian words with their pronunciation in Eblaite, the sensationalist claims were made by Giovanni Pettinato and were coupled with delays in the publication of the complete texts, and it soon became an unprecedented academic crisis. The political context of the modern Arab–Israeli conflict also added fire to the debate, the present consensus is that Eblas role in biblical archaeology, strictly speaking, is minimal. Cities of the Ancient Near East Short chronology timeline Moorey, Peter Roger Stuart, A century of biblical archaeology, Westminster John Knox Press, cities of the Middle East and North Africa, A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-57607-919-5. Chavalas, Mark W. Mesopotamia and the Bible, Continuum International Publishing Group, Ebla Digital Archives at Università Ca Foscari Venice Ebla tablets

42.
Lugal
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Lugal is the Sumerian term for king, ruler. It was one of several Sumerian titles that a ruler of a city-state could bear, the sign eventually became the predominant logograph for King in general. In the Sumerian language, lugal is used to mean an owner or a head, in Akkadian orthography, it may also be a syllabogram šàr, acrophonically based on the Akkadian for king, šarrum. There are different theories regarding the meaning of the title lugal in 3rd millennium Sumer, interestingly, the ensis of Lagash would sometimes refer to the citys patron deity, Ningirsu, as their lugal. All of the above is connected to the possibly priestly or sacral character of the titles ensi, a lugal at that time is assumed to have been normally a young man of outstanding qualities from a rich landowning family. Thorkild Jacobsen theorized that he was originally an war leader, as opposed to the en, among the earliest rulers whose inscriptions describe them as lugals are Enmebaragesi and Mesilim at Kish, and Meskalamdug, Mesannepada and several of their successors at Ur. At least from the Third Dynasty of Ur onwards, only lugal was used to designate a contemporary sovereign in Sumerian, Lugal is used extensively in the Amarna letters, for addressing the kings or pharaohs, and elsewhere in speaking about the various kings. One common address, in the introduction of letters, from the vassals writing to the pharaoh was to use, Šàr-ri

43.
Ebla
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Ebla, was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about 55 km southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh, Ebla was an important center throughout the third millennium BC and in the first half of the second millennium BC. Karl Moore described the first Eblaite kingdom as the first recorded world power, starting as a small settlement in the early Bronze Age, Ebla developed into a trading empire and later into an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. Ebla was destroyed during the 23rd century BC, it was rebuilt and was mentioned in the records of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The second Ebla was a continuation of the first, ruled by a new royal dynasty and it was destroyed at the end of the third millennium BC, which paved the way for the Amorite tribes to settle in the city, forming the third Ebla. The third kingdom also flourished as a center, it became a subject. Ebla maintained its prosperity through a vast trading network, artifacts from Sumer, Cyprus, Egypt and as far as Afghanistan were recovered from the citys palaces. The kingdom had its own language, Eblaite and the organization of Ebla had features different from the Sumerian model. Women enjoyed a status and the queen had major influence in the state. The pantheon of gods was mainly north Semitic and included deities exclusive to Ebla, the city was excavated starting in 1964, and became famous for the Ebla tablets, an archive of about 20,000 cuneiform tablets found there, dated to around 2350 BC. A possible meaning of the word Ebla is white rock, referring to the outcrop on which the city was built. Ebla was first settled around 3500 BC, its growth was supported by many agricultural settlements. The city benefited from its role as an entrepôt of growing international trade, archaeologists designate this early habitation period Mardikh I, it ended around 3000 BC. Mardikh I is followed by the first and second kingdoms era between about 3000 and 2000 BC, designated Mardikh II. I. J. Gelb consider Ebla as part of the Kish civilization, the early period between 3000 and 2400 BC is designated Mardikh IIA. General knowledge about the history prior to the written archives is obtained through excavations. The first stages of Mardikh IIA is identified with building CC, and structures form a part of building G2. Toward the end of period, a hundred years war with Mari started

44.
Irkab-Damu
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Irkab-Damu, was the king of the first Eblaite kingdom, whose era saw Eblas turning into the dominant power in the Levant. During his reign, the vizier started to acquire an important role in running the affair of the state, Irkab-Damus reign is also noted for the wide diplomatic relations between Ebla and the surrounding kingdoms. Irkab-Damu succeeded king Igrish-Halam, whose reign was characterized by an Eblaite weakness, irkab-Damu started his reign by concluding a peace and trading treaty with Abarsal, one of the first recorded treaties in history. Ebla paid tribute to Mari during Irkab-Damus first years on the throne, irkab-Damu launched a successful counteroffensive against Mari, and ended the tribute. A tablet from Ebla mention an Eblaite victory over Nagar, most probably during Irakb-Damus reign, the same tablet mention the concluding of a treaty with Enna-Dagan. Irkab-Damu appointed Arrukum as the first vizier of Ebla, who kept his office for five years, and had his son Ruzi-Malik marrying princess Iti-Mut, the daughter of the king. Gifts from Ancient Egypt were discovered in the palace, indicating the far reaching relations of Ebla. Irkab-Damu was the son of Igrish-Halam and his queen Kesdut and he ruled for eleven years, and married Dusigu in his fifth year on the throne. Ebla tablets Cities of the ancient Near East Eblaite-Mariote war Frayne, pre-Sargonic Period, Early Periods, Volume 1. Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC, Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History, the Ancient Near East, History, Society and Economy. Brotherhood of Kings, How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East